Missouri’s Tony Temple runs for his first of a Cotton Bowl-record four touchdowns during the first quarter yesterday. Temple also set a Cotton Bowl record with 281 yards rushing in Missouri’s 38-7 victory over Arkansas.

His Missouri counterpart left yesterday on a makeshift chariot, riding on the arms of his teammates.

If yesterday’s Cotton Bowl was indeed Tony Temple’s last day in a Missouri uniform, his career concluded in historic fashion. With 8:43 left in a game that had long been decided and his hamstring feeling tight, Temple needed 25 yards to break Dicky Maegle’s 54-year-old Cotton Bowl record for single-game rushing yardage.

One last touch and 40 yards later, Temple turned a memorable day into a record-breaking romp. The senior tailback took Chase Daniel’s handoff, bounced to his right, twirled out of Michael Grant’s tackle and outraced a crowd of Razorbacks to the goal line. Feeling his hamstring twinge near the 5, Temple was carried back from the end zone to the sideline by Daniel and offensive tackle Tyler Luellen, a personal escort of necessity and celebration.

"Arkansas, they came with a great plan to stop our passing game," Temple said a few minutes after Missouri roasted the Razorbacks 38-7. "I’m just doing my job, doing what I’m supposed to do."

On this day, that task was to carry the load of Missouri’s potent offense. With hometown hero Chase Daniel having an unusually quiet day, Temple put together one of the most prolific performances in bowl history. His 281 yards on 24 carries equaled the second-greatest rushing total in any NCAA bowl dating back to 1937, trailing only Georgia Tech’s P.J. Daniels’ 307 yards set in the 2004 Humanitarian Bowl.

Nick King photos

Above, Tony Temple (22) is carried off the field by teammates Chase Daniel, left, and Tyler Luellen after he was slow to get up following his fourth touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter of yesterday’s Cotton Bowl.
Right, the Tigers celebrate with their trophy after the game.

With the victory, No. 7 Missouri (12-2) won a dozen games for the first time in its 117 year-history and improved to 11-14 all-time in bowl games.

Even better, the Tigers should have cemented their spot among the top seven in the final polls and perhaps boosted their 2008 stock toward a top-five preseason ranking.

For that, they can thank Temple, even if yesterday’s game was his grand finale. In the coming weeks, he’ll await word whether the NCAA grants him a fifth year of eligibility based on his injury-shortened freshman season in 2004. That year, Temple played just one game, an ill-fated six-carry disaster at Nebraska, during which he suffered a season-ending ankle injury.

"We’ll see what happens," Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel said. "But that would be a nice phone call."

Temple’s future is uncertain, but his Cotton Bowl legacy is as crystal clear as the shiny offensive MVP trophy he was handed yesterday. In front of an evenly split crowd of 73,114, Temple’s yardage surpassed single-game totals of past Cotton Bowl participants Doak Walker, Jim Brown, Earl Campbell, Bo Jackson, Ricky Williams and Maegle, the ex-Rice back who was infamously tackled off the sideline by Alabama’s Tommy Lewis in the 1954 game. In that game, Maegle ran the ball 11 times for 265 yards, including the 95-yarder he was awarded after Lewis’ illegal tackle.

"Honestly, I thought if anyone would have a chance of breaking the record," Maegle said after the game when reached by Cotton Bowl officials, "I would have thought it would have been one of the Arkansas running backs."

By that, of course, Maegle referred to McFadden, the two-time Heisman Trophy runner-up, and speedy teammate Felix Jones, neither of whom erupted for many long runs against an MU defense that redeemed itself after a shaky performance against Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game. The Southeastern Conference leaders in rushing yards per game (McFadden) and yards per carry (Jones) combined for 150 yards on 31 carries.

McFadden’s week leading up to the Cotton Bowl focused on a report that he drove to Dallas in a luxury sport utility vehicle that was purchased with help from a sports agent. Little Rock, Ark., TV station KARK later apologized for inaccurately reporting the facts of the story, but the mini-scandal only added to a tumultuous season for the Razorbacks.

On the field for the first time since scorching LSU on Nov. 23, McFadden was no match for Temple, who finished the season with 1,039 rushing yards, making him the first Missouri tailback to eclipse 1,000 yards in back-to-back seasons. Temple broke his share of tackles and spun loose from a few more, but more often than not he reached the secondary before feeling any contact. He broke off runs of 22, 22, 41, 22, 38, 19 and 40 yards.

"He was running on air," Arkansas interim Coach Reggie Herring said. "They blocked us. We didn’t get off blocks. It was just a bad day for us defensively. We’ve never played the run that poorly."

Once they arrived in Dallas last week, Arkansas defensive players made it known they didn’t plan to stray from their man-coverage philosophy, even against Missouri’s fleet of speedy receivers and tight ends. One player, senior linebacker Weston Dacus, acknowledged that Arkansas hadn’t spent much time preparing for Missouri’s running game.

"We don’t practice as much against the run when you have a passing game like that," he told reporters Friday, comments that quickly circulated among Missouri’s tailbacks.

Arkansas opened its 11th Cotton Bowl playing a three-man defensive line with seven defensive backs and sometimes dropped as many as 10 defenders into coverage - a ploy that couldn’t have been more inviting for Missouri’s running game had it been scripted in calligraphy.

"When they come out talking about shutting us down and playing man defense, that’s what we love," MU tight end Martin Rucker said. "Take away the pass, and we’ll run the ball. … I don’t know why they thought they could just take us away and shut down Tony Temple."

The strategy worked in terms of slowing down Daniel and the passing game. As a starter, he’s never thrown for fewer than his 136 passing yards, while Rucker and fellow tight end Chase Coffman combined for just four catches for 27 yards.

But unlike Arkansas, the Tigers had a running game to balance its struggles through the air. Missouri’s 323 rushing yards on 43 carries marked their most since compiling 325 at Oklahoma State in 2005. Missouri punted on four of its first six possessions, but Temple capped the other two with touchdown runs of 22 and 4 yards. He made the score Temple 21, Arkansas 0 with another 4-yard burst to open the second half.

Midway through the third quarter, junior free safety William Moore continued his standout season by picking off a Casey Dick pass for fullback Peyton Hillis and returned it for a touchdown. The interception - one of five Missouri takeaways - was Moore’s eighth of the season, pushing him ahead of Roger Wehrli for MU’s single-season record.

Moore was voted the game’s defensive MVP after forcing a fumble and racking up a game-high 13 tackles.

Arkansas snapped the shutout on McFadden’s 3-yard run with 3:08 left in the third quarter, but Missouri answered with Jeff Wolfert’s 32-yard field goal and Temple’s final jaunt to the end zone, the 40-yarder that came after his hamstring had temporarily put him on the sideline.

As the clock ticked off, an assistant coach told Pinkel that Temple was close to setting the Cotton Bowl rushing record.

"So then Tony came up to me a minute later and said, ‘Coach, I think I can go,’ " said Pinkel, sitting between Temple and his MVP trophy. "I said, ‘You better hold onto that doggone ball. That’s all I care about.’ "

A year ago, Temple also sat next to Pinkel in El Paso, Texas, shortly after Oregon State had rallied to stun the Tigers 39-38 and spoil Temple’s 194-yard outburst in the Sun Bowl. That day, Temple was turned away from the MVP ceremony after the broadcast crew pulled a last-second switcheroo and gave the award to Beavers quarterback Matt Moore.

Reminded of that sad scene, Temple laughed.

"I can have all the records in the world, but if my team’s not winning, I don’t care about the records," Temple said. "We leave a great legacy going on here."